All a Bir-r-r-d
All a Bir-r-r-d is a 1950 Looney Tunes short directed by Friz Freleng. Title The title is an adaptation of the familiar train conductor's call, "All aboard!" Plot A train pulls into the station in a town called Gower Gulch, where Tweety's owner says goodbye to him and entrusts him to the care of a conductor (whose face is never seen) in the baggage car. After the train pulls out of the station, Tweety sings his signature song: :I'm a tweet wittle bird in a diwded tage, :Tweety's my name, but I don't know my age. :I don't have to wowwy and dat is dat, :I'm tafe in here fwom dat ol' puddytat. Tweety then notices Sylvester in the cage next to his and gives his catchline, "I tawt I taw a puddytat!" He looks again to make sure: "I did! I did! I did taw a puddytat!" Sylvester then opens the small door of his cage and extends his paw to tap on the door of Tweety's cage. Tweety answers, and as Sylvester tries to grab him, the vigilant conductor swats his paw with a cane. The conductor hangs Tweety's cage on a hook in the ceiling to keep him safe and sound and warns Sylvester to behave. As soon as the conductor leaves the car, Sylvester proceeds to stack various articles of baggage to reach Tweety's cage. When Sylvester tries to grab Tweety again, Tweety finds the emergency cord and pulls it, causing the train to screech to an instant halt and sending Sylvester sailing through the air across several cars and into the engine's furnace. Sylvester quickly leaps out and runs back to the baggage car, and as he angrily stalks Tweety, Tweety pulls the cord again, restarting the train and sending Sylvester through the air into a garbage can lid that Tweety has found. Sylvester then starts chasing Tweety, but the conductor interrupts the chase and orders Sylvester back into his cage. Sylvester is in his cage next to a bulldog, who starts growling at him. Annoyed, Sylvester shouts "Aaaaaaah, shaddup!" and whacks the bulldog with an umbrella, but Hector keeps growling. At that moment, the train is approaching an incline and as it ascends, Sylvester slides into the bulldog, who punches him and sends him into the wall. Sylvester slides back down as the train continues to climb, and the bulldog punches him again. As Sylvester starts sliding down yet again, the train starts moving down the incline, sending Sylvester sliding back to the wall and making him think he is safe, until he sees the bulldog sliding down toward him with fist extended to punch him again, prompting Tweety to say, "Poor puddytat!" Sylvester makes another attempt at stacking the baggage to reach Tweety. Tweety reaches for the emergency cord again, only to see that it has been cut and that Sylvester is holding it. But Tweety pulls it anyway, and again sends Sylvester flying. Sylvester comes back and snatches Tweety, but when he hears the conductor's footsteps, he stuffs Tweety into a mailbag and leaves it on a hook alongside the track. Sylvester smiles sheepishly as the conductor walks by, then dashes to the caboose to grab the mailbag. He reaches inside and instead of Tweety finds the bulldog, who immediately chases him away. As Tweety is swinging inside his cage, Sylvester saws a hole in the roof and again finds the bulldog, instead of Tweety, who starts pursuing Sylvester atop the train. Sylvester momentarily eludes the bulldog by ducking into a space between two cars, then both start running in the opposite direction. As Sylvester prepares to knock the bulldog out with a club, the train heads into a tunnel, slamming Sylvester in the face into the bridge above it. The train finally returns to Gower Gulch station, where Sylvester, disguised as Tweety's "mommy", gets out of a taxi and rushes to the baggage car to claim him. The conductor hands him the cage, which is covered, and Sylvester hurries back to the taxi with the cage. As the taxi drives away, Sylvester uncovers the cage, it was revealed that the bulldog is inside the cage instead of Tweety! The taxi pauses at a mile marker post, and the bulldog rips it out and pummels Sylvester with it as the taxi speeds along the road. As Tweety (everyone forgot it) is observing this from the caboose, he sadly says, "Uh-oh, da puddytat's dot anudda pwaymate! It's donna be awfwy wonesome fwom here to Pasadena." Musical Cues The instrumental theme used to underscore the motion of the train is "On the 5:15". Availability * (1982) VHS - The Looney Tunes Video Show - Volume 6 * (1990) VHS - Sylvester (1990) (Italy) * (1992) VHS - Sylvester and Tweety: The Best Yeows of Our Lives * (1999) LaserDisc - Sylvester and Tweety's Bad Ol' Putty Tat Blues * (2001) DVD - I Love Tweety: Volume 2 * (2004) DVD - Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2, Disc Three * (2010) DVD - Looney Tunes Super Stars' Tweety & Sylvester: Feline Fwenzy Censorship * The version of this cartoon that aired on ABC as part of the Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show cut the part where Sylvester is thrown through the coaches of the train, lands into the engine's furnace, and jumps out with his tail on fire.http://www.intanibase.com/gac/looneytunes/censored-a.aspx The edited version aired from 1994 until the show's end in 2000; prior to those dates, "All a Bir-r-r-d" aired uncut. Notes * This cartoon was Tweety's first appearance in the Looney Tunes series, after eight years of being exclusive to the Merrie Melodies series. * This cartoon was used in The Bugs Bunny Mystery Special, running along with the plot of Bugs Bunny trying to escape Detective Elmer Fudd. * The engine on the train is a 4-4-4 (four leading wheels, four driving wheels, and four trailing wheels), called the "Reading" type, since the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad was the first to use it. * This is the first cartoon where Tweety sings his signature song, which would later be heard again in "Room and Bird" (1951), as well as the opening credits of both "Canary Row" (1950) and "Putty Tat Trouble" (1951). Tweety would sing this song again with remodified lyrics in "Tweet Tweet Tweety" (1951). Goofs * The baggage car, in which Sylvester and Tweety are riding, changes positions during the ride. In closeups, it will be either third, fourth, or fifth behind the engine. In long shots, it's not there at all. Only coach cars are seen. * In closeups, the train's engine carries the No. 651 in some shots, and No. 814 in others. In some long shots, it has no number. * The coal tender has at times the No. 99 on it, or no number at all. Other times it has the letters "S.P. & Q.R." * In long shots, the coach cars sometimes can be seen with the letters "S.P.Q.R." on them. In closeups, this changes to "SouthEast & Western." * On all European PAL TV broadcasts of the cartoon, such as the Italian TV station Mediaset Italia 1, for some odd reason on the English Audio Track the 1946-1955 Looney Tunes ending music cue is replaced by the 1955-1964 Merrie Melodies ending music cue, though on the foreign language dub tracks the original ending music cue is retained. A similar audio error also occurs in European PAL TV broadcasts of "Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur" (1939) and "Who's Kitten Who?" (1952). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5tAnf_dbJ0. Gallery AllABirrrdPreliminarySketchLobbyCard.jpg TV Title Cards Screenshot 20190904-090019.jpg|''The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show (Final Season)'' References External Links * * All A Bir-r-r-d on the SFX Resource Category:Sylvester Cartoons Category:Tweety Cartoons Category:Cartoons directed by Friz Freleng Category:1950 Category:Shorts Category:Looney Tunes Shorts Category:The Bugs Bunny Mystery Special Cartoons Category:Blue Ribbon reissues Category:Cartoons written by Tedd Pierce Category:Cartoons with music by Carl W. Stalling Category:Cartoons animated by Emery Hawkins Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Mel Blanc Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Bea Benaderet Category:Cartoons with film editing by Treg Brown Category:Cartoons with sound effects edited by Treg Brown Category:Cartoons with orchestrations by Milt Franklyn Category:Cartoons produced by Eddie Selzer